Following on my last post about ‘yoga class philosophy’, I wanted to share this amazing TED talk for those who haven’t seen it yet. I think it might well be life-changing. In my work with clients I have been finding that there is an undue amount of anxiety about being stressed and anxious and challenged, which was part of what inspired the post. And now I find there’s some fascinating studies that back up my idea that the problem is not stress itself, but the second-order stress that makes us worry so much about it. In this talk, Kelly McGonigal demonstrates how to change your mind about stress, thereby changing your body’s response to it.

I hope this TED talk gets shared widely, and I suspect it will, as there seems to be an emerging trend against all this ‘close your eyes and breathe and avoid unpleasantness’.